Citing documents provided by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Friday that it was actually the United Kingdom that was behind the recently disclosed malware infection at a major Belgian telco. Der Spiegel said that top secret documents from the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent of the NSA, show that “Operation Socialist” was designed "to enable better exploitation of Belgacom."

Previously, a major Belgian newspaper, De Standaard, had pointed the finger at the NSA. The scandal has raised a lot of questions in the European Union—after all, Belgium and the United Kingdom are both part of the 28-member bloc. As Der Spiegel reported:

According to the slides in the GCHQ presentation, the attack was directed at several Belgacom employees and involved the planting of a highly developed attack technology referred to as a "Quantum Insert" ("QI"). It appears to be a method with which the person being targeted, without their knowledge, is redirected to websites that then plant malware on their computers that can then manipulate them. Some of the employees whose computers were infiltrated had "good access" to important parts of Belgacom's infrastructure, and this seemed to please the British spies, according to the slides.

Belgacom deferred all questions of future action to the public prosecutor and the Ministry of Justice. “Belgacom has detected and eradicated the virus,” Haroun Fenaux, a Belgacom spokesperson, told Le Soir newspaper (Google Translate) on Friday.“We’ve then brought a complaint. With respect to all of these aspects, since Monday we have communicated everything in a transparent manner. Now, it is the job of the federal prosecutor, supported by the Computer Crime Unit and the Ministry of Defense, to do their job and determine who was behind the virus and what their intentions were.”

This is a criminal act so it would be nice to see some people go to jail.

I know, a ridiculous comment right? Someday though our broken political system will allow a person inside who manages to execute an act of true justice against the insiders. One act of true justice against the Wall Streeters, the intel community who lie to congress and walk scot free, and the money grubbing lobbyists and their employers.

Once that 1 single act against the corrupt insiders happens a floodgate will open, the country and the world will demand more, that all corrupt insiders get the same justice as any other citizen.

Waffle technology never ceases is remorseless advance. All countries must be vigilant to developments.

Fun fact, what North Americans call "Belgian Waffles" don't actually even exist in Belgium. Kinda like how French Fries aren't from France; they're from Belgium. They were called "French" by American troops during WWI and the name just stuck.

Waffle technology never ceases is remorseless advance. All countries must be vigilant to developments.

Fun fact, what North Americans call "Belgian Waffles" don't actually even exist in Belgium. Kinda like how French Fries aren't from France; they're from Belgium. They were called "French" by American troops during WWI and the name just stuck.

Call them what you want... if you walk around the grand plaza in Brussels right now, you will smell the aroma of some of the finest waffles on the planet being cranked out in numerous shops.

And if you've ever done taste tests between british ales and belgian ales, you know the real reason they were spying.

Waffle technology never ceases is remorseless advance. All countries must be vigilant to developments.

Fun fact, what North Americans call "Belgian Waffles" don't actually even exist in Belgium. Kinda like how French Fries aren't from France; they're from Belgium. They were called "French" by American troops during WWI and the name just stuck.

Call them what you want... if you walk around the grand plaza in Brussels right now, you will smell the aroma of some of the finest waffles on the planet being cranked out in numerous shops.

And if you've ever done taste tests between british ales and belgian ales, you know the real reason they were spying.

Sorry,but you guys are both incorrect about the true motives behind the hack - namely,the US is trying to find the secret behind Belgian chocolates As for the beers comment,damnit - thanks for making me yearn for a cold pint of Stella Artois in the middle of the work day

As a Brit, the thing that really bothers me is the total lack of interest in the whole spying issue from the British public, politicians and media. The NSA et al may come under increased scrutiny and regulation in the States but it seems pretty clear that the British intelligence services will continue to get away with doing whatever the hell they want.

As a Brit, the thing that really bothers me is the total lack of interest in the whole spying issue from the British public, politicians and media. The NSA et al may come under increased scrutiny and regulation in the States but it seems pretty clear that the British intelligence services will continue to get away with doing whatever the hell they want.

You live in a country were cameras are practically everywhere. Why should you be surprised?

Can we assume standard virus protection will help (assuming one keeps virus definitions up to date), or should we be more cynical and assume that the US government paid virus manufacturers not to fix certain viruses, in the name of national security?

I'm sorry, wouldn't this, in a rational world, be considered an act of war? Or do we all pretend not to notice these incursions, like the Cold War hadn't ended (it did - didn't it?)

IMHO,n act of war is frankly a nebulous term,since every nation out there with an axe to grind can and will find one that will justify it to gets its war on. Hell,if a lil' bit of spying between friends was that big of a deal,then the world would be a nice lil' free for all,because allies will spy each other pretty much the same way they'll keep tabs on 'the enemy' and unaffiliated countries. After all, being allies with someone today doesn't mean that tomorrow you won't be at each other's throats (btw sadly history justifies this practice) gave us priceless gems like the US' War Plan Red (despite fighting together against the Germans in the trenches less than a decade before)...

SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) is located in Belgium. Pretty sure that they would run a lot of their land-based communications through the local infrastructure. Seems like a pretty good place to go if you wanted information on/from your friends/allies.

To those from the US saying it is normal for nations to spy on each other: Please remember, that both Belgium and the UK are members of the European Union and GCHQ shares its data with the US. Therefore this is basically a bigger issue than the US spying on the EU (although they are supposed to be allies, too). I think most european countries had a rather blue eyed perception of EU - US relations and are about to rethink their behaviour in the future. And this is not a good thing.

Waffle technology never ceases is remorseless advance. All countries must be vigilant to developments.

Fun fact, what North Americans call "Belgian Waffles" don't actually even exist in Belgium. Kinda like how French Fries aren't from France; they're from Belgium. They were called "French" by American troops during WWI and the name just stuck.

Fact check - French fries are called French because of the technique used to cut them into shape (Frenching)

Waffle technology never ceases is remorseless advance. All countries must be vigilant to developments.

Fun fact, what North Americans call "Belgian Waffles" don't actually even exist in Belgium. Kinda like how French Fries aren't from France; they're from Belgium. They were called "French" by American troops during WWI and the name just stuck.

Fact check - French fries are called French because of the technique used to cut them into shape (Frenching)

As a Brit, the thing that really bothers me is the total lack of interest in the whole spying issue from the British public, politicians and media. The NSA et al may come under increased scrutiny and regulation in the States but it seems pretty clear that the British intelligence services will continue to get away with doing whatever the hell they want.

You live in a country were cameras are practically everywhere. Why should you be surprised?

While i'm not surprised -- these are technically separate sovereign countries -- the fact they're part of a union of geographically close states makes this seem as silly as florida spying on south carolina. Or florida hacking the verizon headquarters in...whatever state it's in.

Waffle technology never ceases is remorseless advance. All countries must be vigilant to developments.

Fun fact, what North Americans call "Belgian Waffles" don't actually even exist in Belgium. Kinda like how French Fries aren't from France; they're from Belgium. They were called "French" by American troops during WWI and the name just stuck.

While i'm not surprised -- these are technically separate sovereign countries -- the fact they're part of a union of geographically close states makes this seem as silly as florida spying on south carolina. Or florida hacking the verizon headquarters in...whatever state it's in.

Can't we all just get along?

It's not quite the same as that, as the spying wasn't on Belgium, it was on a company that happens to operate out of Belgium but carries communications for the Middle East and Africa.

A better analogy would be Texas spying on a company in Florida because that company has access to Mexican communications and the Texas gov't is (hypothetical) weary of Mexico's antics and wants to keep tabs on their actions.

Edit: Apparently "was" and "wasn't" don't mean the same thing, who knew? (Typo!)

Notice how he hasn't leaked anything bad about Russia or any of Russia's close allies...

Then again, why would a Russian spy betray his own...

Or, you know...he worked for US companies and had access to the shared information of the US and allies...but didn't have access to documents on Russian activities, since he wasn't a)working for a Russian company and b)Russia and the US share relatively little information compared to the US and UK.

That would be another very good reason he wasn't leaking on the Russians.

Waffle technology never ceases is remorseless advance. All countries must be vigilant to developments.

Fun fact, what North Americans call "Belgian Waffles" don't actually even exist in Belgium. Kinda like how French Fries aren't from France; they're from Belgium. They were called "French" by American troops during WWI and the name just stuck.

Guinness in the US is vastly different (in taste) to Guinness served in Temple Street Dublin - mostly due to the pastuerisation processes. Yet its still `guinness`

dont even get me started on whatever nonsense there seems to be about irishmen only eating cabbage and corned beef - cabbage s best parboiled, sauted in bacon drippings and served with malt vinegar and salt WITH the bacon you cooked before hand, corned beef is tasty enough, but its a bland (almost pemmican) style food - more likely to get it mixed in with mashed (creamed with butter & milk) potatos over here.